How to be a Presentation God: Build, Design, and Deliver Presentations that Dominate!

Chapter 14. 100 Percent All-Natural Passion

To do and to be: These are the actions that define great presentations. Do a set of practical tasks: Brainstorm, outline, design, practice, and speak. Be a set of qualities: confident, charismatic, calm, prepared, and insightful. The quest to build, design, and deliver great presentations comes down to these two simple verbs: do and be. Do everything right, and be absolutely incredible.

Everything in life, in fact, boils down to these two verbs. They answer a single, vital question: Who am I? It's 2011 and we have thousands of years of history to serve as a guide for how we ought to live our lives. We have both good and bad examples. However, we get so caught up in our day-to-day activities that we forget how many of our questions have already been answered by other people in other times. How should I live? What do I want? Where do I find meaning and purpose? The answers are so simple, they're almost unsatisfactory: I am what I do. I am what I am.

The great men and women of history are great because of what they did and what they stood for. Greatness isn't given even to those who inherit thrones on the basis of blood; how many sons of kings have disappeared from the pages of history with barely a mention? Likewise, how many paupers have risen up to redefine the very shape of human existence? Everything that we know about what should and should not be is irrelevant. Everything that we have been up to this very moment is irrelevant. The ...